In Improving Mental Health: Four Secrets in Plain Sight, Dr.
Lloyd Sederer draws upon four decades of diverse clinical practice,
mental health research and public health experience to create a
memorable volume that is as elegant as it is instructive.

The book aims
to help clinicians improve the lives of their patients--and patients to
improve their own lives--by identifying these secrets and taking action
in ways that can work immediately, closing the science-to-practice gap.
In addition to mental health and primary care clinicians, patients and
their families will find the book's many stories, clinical examples and
cultural references fascinating and illuminating.

The book's four foundational truths, all hiding in plain sight and all eminently actionable, are

Behavior serves a purpose. The search for meaning and the
identification and communication value of a behavior are too often
overlooked aspects of mental health care and a lost opportunity with and
for patients and their families.

The power of
attachment. The force of attachment as a human need and drive must be
harnessed if we are to change painful and problem behaviors.
Relationships are the royal road to remedying human suffering—both
individual and collective.

As a rule, less is
more. Mental health treatments, both medical and psychosocial, have
often been aggressive, from high doses of drugs to intensive sessions
and psychic confrontation in individual and group psychotherapy.
Unfortunately, these high risk efforts infrequently provide help and
often have unwanted and problematic effects. Primum non nocere—first, do
no harm—is the first law of medicine.

Chronic
stress is the enemy. From adverse childhood experiences to posttraumatic
stress, chronic stress can be an underlying factor in the development
of many mental and physical disorders. However, chronic stress can be
understood and contained, thereby reducing its damage.

Dr.
Sederer synthesizes the knowledge gained through his considerable
experience as a psychiatrist with insights gleaned from history,
research and literature to address the four truths in a systematic, yet
lively, manner. The result is a book of rare grace. Improving Mental Health: Four Secrets in Plain Sight will be a touchstone for the clinician and general reader alike.